Change History

Oh, I just realized that there may be issues with Emacs. So, the translation that I propose is Copy, Paste and Cut to be translated to Control-Insert, Shift-Insert and Shift-Delete accordingly. That should work for Emacs and all CUA applications.

The only thing we can translate them too are PC scan codes. Do those keys work if you use the keyboard with a real Windows system? If so they can theoretically work in a guest. Checking how X11 sees them using the "xev" tool might help us a bit. If you also know what scan codes they produce or correspond to, even better.

Finding out the scan codes to assign to the keys would help more. But if a physical Windows installation does not recognise the keys, we are probably not going to achieve much. We can't assign a key combination to a keypress, as the guest sees scan codes when you press and release keys, not key symbols.

A bit of quick googling suggests that the Sun keyboard probably does not actually "have" PS/2 scan codes for the additional keys. If you can suggest keys on a PS/2 or Microsoft keyboard that the additional function keys can be mapped to, we could consider that.

I would like to point out again that since VirtualBox emulates a physical keyboard, we can only map keys on the host to the equivalent of physical keys in the guest - NOT key combinations. I might also point out that there is no F15 key on a PS/2 or Microsoft keyboard.

Stop, Again and friends do not have PS/2 scan codes assigned. I must admit that I took a look at that document briefly earlier today, but I just missed the F13 to F24, which do have PS/2 scan codes. I could map F13 to F24 on the host keyboard to those keys, although I don't know whether (Solaris) guests would actually recognise that mapping.

Well, I'm not worried about Solaris guests. I'm worried about Windows guests on the Solaris host which is where we have a Sun Keyboard after all (do I have the host/guest terminology backwards?). So, I would be happy if you mapped those keys to F11-F20 as I indicated:
Stop (F11) Again (F12) Props (F13) Undo (F14) Front (F15) Copy (F16) Open (F17) Paste (F18) Find (F19) Cut (F20)
Thanks.

(Nearly) all PC keyboards have F11 and F12. And since you wrote yourself that Windows doesn't recognise the other function keys on physical hardware, I don't think that it will do better on virtual hardware which resembles physical hardware as closely as we can make it. Perhaps it is possible to set up the Windows guest to do things with those keys though...

I don't much care about F11 and F12. I'm just trying to be consistent with the xmodmap definitions for those keys. But, I definitely want F13-F20. If those were recognized, then I would have a chance of defining those keys in MS Office, Emacs/XEmacs, etc. I have gotten very used to these keys, and when I am using Windows, I am constantly sub-consciously pressing them (these keys have been part of the Sun experience for my 20 years of SunOS/Solaris usage). So, please define these. Thanks

This test build of the next stable release (please read this first) contains the change. I haven't tested it as I don't have a Sun keyboard handy. Feel free to give it a try, but don't get your hopes up for Windows guests if Windows on physical hardware can't handle the extra keys. You might also do me a favour and test it with a Solaris guest (a live CD?) if you have time.

This is awesome!!! Can this please be a feature now? All the left-side keys are recognized by XEmacs. However, Word only sees F11-F16, but that is probably a Word bug. We have a MS support contract so I'll contact them about Word.

I'm wondering if the trick in 2302 would help here. By that I mean something like Paste/F18 could be interpreted (by the VirtualBox application ONLY, not other applications if possible) as Shift-Insert. I don't really understand what they are talking about in 2302, so that's why I am asking. Thanks.

We have moved to a new Oracle Linux server. But, I used the same prescription to test those keys that I used before; i.e. I used the stable version of XEmacs for Windows (and I also tested it with GNU Emacs). Only F11 and F12 are recognized (of course, all of the keys are recognized by the Linux host, but the VirtualBox Windows guest never sees them). I have an old Sun USB Type 7 keyboard. The letter keys are sticky, but the function keys are fine; you can have it. Do you want me to FedEx it to you for testing? What is your address? You can send it to me privately if you don't want that information in the database. Thanks

I don't think that will be needed. Could you please check in a Linux guest (a DSL live CD is a quick solution if you don't have a Linux guest handy) whether the keys are recognised there? The "xev" tool inside an X session and the "showkeys -s" tool from a virtual terminal (not an X terminal) provide useful information. The information produced by xev on the host could be useful too.

With Ubuntu 11.10 LTS, showkey -s just gives me:
Couldn't get a file descriptor referring to the console
With showkey -a, I see that F11 and F12 do work, but none of the other keys show anything in the terminal.

Just to be sure there - are STOP and AGAIN giving you F11 and F12, and the other left-hand-side keys F13 to F20? If so what do the "real" F11 and F12 give you? I still haven't quite got the hang of Sun keyboards.

Here is a link to a 64bit test version of VirtualBox for RHEL 5 which I hope will fix your issue (The usual warnings about using test software apply, though this is from the stable branch, so I don't expect any problems). You may have to change the VM to use an emulated USB keyboard though rather than the default PS/2 one.

It was working with Solaris 10 as the host and Windows XP as the guest. This bug report was originally posted, and the bug was fixed on that platform, a couple of years ago. We recently move to Oracle Linux. But, I was surprised it did not work with Oracle Linux as the host since the Sun keyboard functions exactly the same way. It is recognized as a Type 6 USB keyboard (which, as I understand it, is exactly the same as a Type 7 for all locales except Japanese).

Just to be clear again: having a support contract for Oracle Linux and Solaris does not give you any rights to demand engineering work on VirtualBox, which is an unrelated product. Further more, this has never to my knowledge worked on an Oracle Linux host, and we don't feel any moral obligation to support extra buttons on keyboards which happen to be produced by the same company. That said (this is all on a purely voluntary basis), you might give this build a try:

The keys work in a Linux guest emulating a USB keyboard. They should report PS/2 scan codes F13 to F23 (with Stop, Again and Help reported as F21 to F23) with PS/2 emulation, but Linux guests seem to ignore this. I don't know if Windows guests will or not.

Yes!!!!! That works in a Windows guest! The usb setting is the same, i.e. you can't do anything. But, the ps2 setting works and F13-F20 are now recognized! I assume this will now be a standard feature of vbox going forward. Thank you!